The ongoing inquiry into events at the Countess of Chester hospital in the wake of the conviction of Lucy Letby has heard from a doctor who believes that the nurse may have harmed babies before June 2015, and testimony suggesting hospital bosses ‘shut down’ concerns raised by consultants.
The inquiry heard of Former Detective Chief Superintendent Nigel Wenham’s frustrations that executives were ‘attempting to shut doors on the investigation as it was being considered’.
When asked by the BBC yesterday, Mr Wenham stated that he was not aware until March 2017 of the increase in infant deaths on the unit in the last two years. Letby had moved duties in July 2016 after consultants told executives of their concerns, but Cheshire police were not called into the hospital until nearly a year later, when plans to reinstate Letby’s position were already in place.
Mr Wenham was present at a meeting at the hospital in late April 2017 in which concerns were outlined, with Dr Ravi Jayaram noted to have stated ‘one member of staff, concern Beverley Allitt’, drawing connotations to the nurse convicted of multiple murders of children in 1991. ‘Some of the doctors present were clearly concerned,’ Mr Wenham said, and ‘A lot of the doctors involved did raise concerns repeatedly [but] they were shut down.’
Concerns regarding the legitimacy of the evidence that incriminated her have additionally been raised at the public inquiry into her case. With no CCTV or DNA evidence, what was presented against Letby was circumstantial. A spreadsheet listing incidents at the hospitals with ‘X’s showing the members of staff that had been on duty was used, and while Letby was the only nurse on duty for all of them, two incidents which were accounted for in ‘undisputed medical evidence’ were missing from the grid.
Experts have criticised the fact that only those deaths where Letby were on shift have been investigated, leading to her 14 prosecutions, despite the fact that many babies collapsed or died during this several year period at the hospital. The abatement of deaths once Letby was no longer working at the Countess of Chester can be explained by the downgrading of the unit, meaning it no longer took in the most complex cases.
A recent investigation by the BBC examined the evidence surrounding the air embolism incidents – where Letby was believed to have injected air into a baby’s blood using a syringe. Syringes in hospitals are incinerated after use, making those used untraceable. Retired consultant paediatrician speaking for the Prosecution, Dr Dewi Evans stated, ‘babies don’t suddenly drop dead.’
Dr Mike Hall, a medical expert witness for Letby, told the BBC ‘I think that what the prosecution experts said was misleading for the jury,’ but emphasised that this was ‘not the same thing as saying that they deliberately misled the jury.’
Letby’s case remains open under her new lawyer, Mark McDonald, who plans to take her case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
